Belated Happy Birthday to the Generalissimo!

On December 28, 1922, Stanley Martin Lieber was born.

Young Stanley began writing while he was a teenager, but he got his break when he got a job with Timely Comics in 1939. His first published story for Timely was a text-only Captain America story in 1941, under the pseudonym “Stan Lee,” which he later adopted as his legal name. After spending a few years in the Army writing propaganda material, Lee returned to Timely, where, with collaborators Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby, among others, he helped create Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, and countless other fictional characters.

He was made publisher of Marvel (Timely changed their name to Atlas Comics, then Marvel, after one of the titles they published) in 1972, and he subsequently led the publisher from a small publishing house to a multimedia giant.

Needless to say, Stan’s contributions to the world of comics have made him a legend.

I have to say that I am a huge Stan Lee fan. One of my dreams is to be able to sit down with him and pick his brain about all aspects of the creative process, and just comics in general. Maybe I could get some inspiration for my own graphic novel, which is collecting dust at the moment.

Also, he would have to sign my copy of Dunn’s Conundrum. If you’re a fellow Lee nerd, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.